Knehans to serve as the league's Sports Information Director in addition to other duties

June 04, 2014

MONTGOMERY, Ala.-- The Southern States Athletic Conference has announced the hiring of Samuel Knehans as assistant commissioner/sports information director, commissioner Mike Hall announced Tuesday.

Knehans brings a wealth of experience to the conference office, ranging from graduating with a 4.0 at Syracuse University to interning at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics national office.

"I am very excited to have Sam join us as assistant commissioner," SSAC commissioner Mike Hall said. "All of the individuals that were involved in the interviewing process believe strongly that Sam has the 'new age' skills and experience to perform very well in this position and to be a tremendous asset to the SSAC. His most recent experience at the NAIA will also be a great benefit in advancing our conference student-athletes, teams and institutions forward as we continue to be the premier conference in the NAIA."

At the NAIA national office, Knehans served as the primary media contact for nine sports and served as media coordinator and press liaison at six NAIA National Championship events.

During his time at Syracuse, he served as a game day assistant in the athletic department, overseeing a team of 12 game day employees at volleyball home matches, participating in game day operations and organizing post-game interviews.

Majoring in magazine journalism and political science, Knehans earned Valedictorian honors, while also picking up a pair of minors in sport management and African American studies.

While at Syracuse, he also interned with IMG as a game day marketing intern, Missouri Baptist as a sports information intern and the Syracuse Chiefs as a communications intern.

Through these internships, Knehans picked up valuable experience in social media, marketing, writing and web site management.

At Missouri Baptist, he developed the athletic department's presence on Facebook and wrote weekly releases and articles for the web site, at IMG, he ran promotions for Syracuse University athletics and with the Chiefs, he increased their Twitter following by 200 percent, along with other work.

"I am honored to join the Southern States Athletic Conference as assistant commissioner and am excited to work with a group of member institutions that have such a rich tradition of success both academically and athletically," Knehans said.